Jennifer Gilomen, Lead Developer at BAVC and New Routes Leader

A wise practice from Uganda

In Uganda, sexual health isn’t something that is only discussed behind closed doors.  Multiple factors, including systemic sexual violence toward women and youth, resulted in large HIV infection rates and forced government agencies and communities to publicly recognize the existence of a large community health problem. Hand-painted signs in primary school playgrounds state directly and simply: “don’t have sex,” or “HIV can affect anyone,” and giant billboards on public highways declare over the image of a proudly smiling teenage girl: “intergenerational sex stops with me.”  I was struck by a Ugandan priest who told me that he had to overcome the barrier of silence about sexual health in his own parish because, quite simply, “his people were dying.”  With respect to traditionally “taboo” public health topics such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, or STDs, communities in the U.S. could learn much from adopting this wisdom, recognizing that the problems exist, allowing affected individuals to share experiences, speak and be heard, and identifying and addressing systemic causes, thereby breaking our own (largely cultural) barriers of silence.

Jen's Bio

Jen Gilomen is Lead Developer of Strategic Initiatives at the Bay Area Video Coalition, working to develop innovative national initiatives for public media production, distribution, education, and collaboration.  For two years she managed BAVC’s Digital Storytelling Institute as producer and advisor, helping over twenty California-based nonprofits to increase their technical capacity and harness media for social change.  Her background is in documentary film, web development, graphic design, media instruction, and communications. She has taught youth media programs, developed countless Web sites for companies, nonprofits, and independent filmmakers, and produced nationally and internationally distributed films. 

Topics: New Routes Leaders